Simple and clear, mutated moths that bugs around at night, attracted by the light.
They will fly around light sources, like torches, campfires and flashlights, they have no attack, but will throw the player on the ground if they run into him.
This could actually bring up a new status of hypothetical threat against the player, like “Eeeeeeeeek” that will cause a panic and eventually an Adrenaline rush, implementing also a scream that will attract nearby zombies.
I can already imagine the scene, a giant moth that mauls your campfire while zombies breaks through the windows and take care of the campfire owner.
Your suggestions so far:
- More swamps, the most annoying biome in the game
- A superdemon plague monster that instakills you
- A weather effect more persistent and annoying than regular smoke
- A monster that makes navigating at night even more of a chore
Maybe you could tune it down just a notch? Anyway, having a fear mechanic seems like it would take way more effort to implement and just be even more of an annoyance, especially with the morale system already in place.
tbf, I like the plague monster and the mist idea.
Only ever saw someone freaked out by a moth once, but she’s spooked by all bugs so there’s that.
I’m thinking it should be fast, fragile, and only aggressive if you come stupidly close or use a light at night. The important part would be giving it the attack moths are known for… eating your best clothing. Low hp damage, high equipment damage as it eats the shirt right off your back.
But that’s just my two cents.
It’s practically impossible to navigate early on in the game without using a flashlight, and that’s not including the vehicle headlights that are already on. Trying to navigate at night is already difficult enough, we don’t need to punish an early-game player any further.
[quote=“TaintedHolyWater, post:4, topic:3899”]Only ever saw someone freaked out by a moth once, but she’s spooked by all bugs so there’s that.
I’m thinking it should be fast, fragile, and only aggressive if you come stupidly close or use a light at night. The important part would be giving it the attack moths are known for… eating your best clothing. Low hp damage, high equipment damage as it eats the shirt right off your back.
But that’s just my two cents.[/quote]
Not exactly. It’s actually larvae of a specific type of moths, not the moth itself. Moths usually feed on nectar and plant juices, if they have mouths at adult stage at all. Though, there are blood-sucking moths in Siberia.
Inadequate, I am full of Ideas, and I love to show them up, but more than that, I love to discuss them, to make them better, thats the spirit of conversation, isn’t it?. As you may have noticed all of them got tuned down, tweaked and reworked, so why not this?
Anyway, night traveling is not that hard, for me the first nights are dedicated exploring cities that would otherwise be overwhelmed by zeds in the day, mostly without a flashlight, I keep them for controlling basements only. So pretty much depends on the way the player faces situations.
The easy fix for that is only travel during the day. I never need a flash light.
Enemies that are attracted to light sounds interesting to me (in fact, almost all ideas proposed sound interesting to me 
)
Moth that does not harm the player but eat away their clothes? I imagine that will make traveling with flashlight or headlight very dangerous, not in the tradition sense, but still dangerous nonetheless. I don’t really like the idea of your hard earned clothes (cargopants, backpack) can get destroyed by a few moths, you’ve got zombies to worry about.
Beside mere annoyance - in itself that’s not a bad idea, critter that’s annoying but harmless and add to the flavour of the game. But if we want to make mutated moth more than an annoyance, I suggest they can indirectly harm the player through their present, with that big of a size, those wings flapping must make some noise right? We can make a large enough mass of moths create noise and this noise may attract nearby zombies.
This can lead to interesting scenarios where a few moth flying close to the player wouldn’t be a problem, but when your flashlight attract a whole host of 'em you better be sure that will make some noise. You can turn off your light for a while and the moths will scatter, after that you can turn the light back on again.
Me too, not sure if that’s a common thing, but I tend to go on night raid mission without lights unless I’m still far from the city, upon getting close to the city, I will turn off the lights and navigate by minimap, walk close to the wall and try to hop from house to house (I left the windows open at day for this purpose).
It seems like all your suggestions just focus on making the game more difficult for inexperienced players, and that’s already difficult enough. Anyhow, this doesn’t address the issue that implementing a whole new fear mechanic seems redundant considering the morale system already exists. Plus considering all the other monsters you’d be facing, the moth being the only one to scare you seems a little silly.
Shall we?
Anyway, yes, maybe that’s a bit silly, but you know, It maybe become a trait, like “insectophobia” alongside with “Arachnophobia”, that will throw your morale down if there is a spider or a big insect nearby